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The  Clock  that  Had  no  Hands 

a7id  Nineteen  other  Essays 
About    Advertising 


By       Herbert       Kaufman 


GIFT   OF 
Mrs. William  L.Cook 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/clockthathadnohaOOkaufrich 


'The  Clock  that  Had 
no  Hands 


^uv4tuoj  uvuoQ  7/  dEuodQ 


uvtujnv^  fU3qu9j^ 

2utst}Udcipy  jnoqy 
sKvss-^  udqjQ  uddfdutj^  puy 

syuvfj  ou 
fvijwqi  pop  9qj^ 


COPYRIGHT,   1908 
BY  THE   CHICAGO  TRIBUNE 

COPYRIGHT,   I9I2 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


^  ^ThAcyyS.d^ 


THB«PLIMPTON«PRBSS 

[  W  •  D  'Oj 
NORWOOD*MASS«U>S«A 


Contents 


PAGE 

"^The  Clock  that  Had  no  Hands      ...  i 

The  Cannon  that  Modernized  Japan       .  7 

The  Tailor  who  Paid  too  Much    ...  13 

The  Man  who  Retreats  before  His  Defeat  19 

The  Dollar  that  Can't  be  Spent       .     .  25 

The  Pass  of  Thermopylae 31 

^The  Perambulating  Showcase    ....  37 

How  Alexander  Untied  the  Knot      .     .  43 

If  It  Fits  You,  Wear  this  Cap      ...  49 

>You  Must  Irrigate  Your  Neighborhood  55 

Cato*s  Follow-up  System 61 

How  TO  Write  Retail  Advertising  Copy  67 
The    Difference    between   Amusing   and 

Convincing 75 

Some  Don'ts  when  You  Do  Advertise  79 

The  Doctor  whose  Patients  Hang  On     .  85 

The  Horse  that  Drew  the  Load  ...  91 

The  Cellar  Hole  and  the   Sewer  Hole  97 

The  Neighborhood  of  Your  Advertising  103 

The  Mistake  of  the  Big  Steak      .     .      .  109 

The  Omelette  Souffle 113 


586412 


The  Clock  that  Had 
no  Hands 


The  Clock  that  Had 
no  Hands 


NEWSPAPER  advertising  is  to  busi- 
ness, what  hands  are  to  a  clock.  It 
is  a  direct  and  certain  means  of 
letting  the  public  know  what  you  are  doing. 
In  these  days  of  intense  and  vigilant  com- 
mercial contest,  a  dealer  who  does  not  ad- 
vertise is  like  a  clock  thai  has  no  hands.  He 
has  no  way  of  recording  his  movements.  He 
can  no  more  expect  a  twentieth  century 
success  with  nineteenth  century  methods, 
than  he  can  wear  the  same  sized  shoes  as 
a  many  which  fitted  him  in  his  boyhood. 

His  father  and  mother  were  content  with 
neighborhood  shops  and  bobtail  cars ;  noth- 
ing better  could  be  had  in  their  day.  They 
were  accustomed  to  seek  the  merchant  in- 
stead of  being  sought  hy  him.  They  dealt 
"around  the  corner"  in  one-story  shops 


4    The  Clock  that  Had  no  Hands 

which  depended  upon  the  immediate  friends 
of  the  dealer  for  support.  So  long  as  the 
city  was  made  up  of  such  neighborhood 
units,  each  with  a  full  outfit  of  butchers, 
bakers,  clothiers,  jewelers,  furniture  dealers 
and  shoemakers,  it  was  possible  for  the 
proprietors  of  these  little  establishments 
to  exist  and  make  a  profit. 

But  as  population  increased,  transit  facili- 
ties spread,  sections  became  specialized, 
block  after  block  was  entirely  devoted  to 
stores,  and  mile  after  mile  became  solely 
occupied  by  homes. 

The  purchaser  and  the  storekeeper  grew 
farther  and  farther  apart.  It  was  necessary 
for  the  merchant  to  find  a  substitute  for 
his  direct  personality,  which  no  longer  served 
to  draw  customers  to  his  door.  He  had  to 
have  a  bond  between  the  commercial  center 
and  the  home  center.  Rapid  transit  elimi- 
nated distance  but  advertising  was  necessary 
to  inform  people  where  he  was  located  and 
what  he  had  to  sell.  It  was  a  natural  out- 
growth of  changed  conditions  —  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  era  in  trade  which  no  longer 
relied  upon  personal  acquaintance  for  success. 


The  Clock  that  Had  no  Hands  5 

Something  more  wonderful  than  the 
fabled  philosopher's  stone  came  into  being, 
and  the  beginnings  of  fortunes  which  would 
pass  the  hundred  million  mark  and  place 
tradesmen  s  daughters  upon  Oriental  thrones 
grew  from  this  new  force.  Within  fifty 
years  it  has  become  as  vital  to  industry  as 
steam  to  commerce. 

Advertising  is  not  a  luxury  nor  a  debatable 
policy.  It  has  proven  its  case.  Its  record 
is  traced  in  the  skylines  of  cities  where  a 
hundred  towering  buildings  stand  as  a 
lesson  of  reproach  to  the  men  who  had  the 
opportunity  but  not  the  foresight,  and  furnish 
a  constant  inspiration  to  the  young  merchant 
at  the  threshold  of  his  career. 


"The  Cannon  that  Modernized 
yapan 


The  Cannon  that 
Modernized  Japan 

BUSINESS  is  no  longer  a  man  to  man 
contact,  in  which  the  seller  and  the 
buyer  establish  a  personal  bond,  any 
more  than  battle  is  a  hand-to-hand  grapple 
wherein  bone  and  muscle  and  sinew  decide 
the  outcome.  Trade  as  well  as  war  has 
changed  aspect  —  both  are  now  fought  at  long 
range. 

Just  as  a  present  day  army  of  heroes 
would  have  no  opportunity  to  display  the 
individual  valor  of  its  members,  just  so 
a  merchant  who  counts  upon  his  direct 
acquaintanceship  for  success,  is  a  relic  of 
the  past  —  a  business  dodo, 

Japan  changed  her  policy  of  exclusion  to 
foreigners,  after  a  fleet  of  warships  battered 
down  the  Satsuma  fortifications.  The 
Samurai,  who  had  hitherto  considered  their 


10  Cannon  that  Modernized  yapan 

blades  and  bows  efficient,  discovered  that 
one  cannon  was  mightier  than  all  the  swords 
in  creation — ij  they  could  not  get  near  enough 
to  use  them.  Japan  profited  by  the  lesson. 
She  did  not  wait  until  further  ramparts  were 
pounded  to  pieces  but  was  satisfied  with  her 
one  experience  and  proceeded  to  modernize 
her  methods. 

The  merchant  who  doesn't  advertise  is 
pretty  much  in  the  same  position  as  that 
in  which  Japan  stood  when  her  eyes  were 
opened  to  the  fact  that  times  had  changed. 
The  long  range  publicity  of  a  competitor 
will  as  surely  destroy  his  business  as  the 
cannon  of  the  foreigners  crumbled  the  walls 
of  Satsuma.  Unless  you  take  the  lesson  to 
heart,  unless  you  realize  the  importance  of 
advertising,  not  only  as  a  means  of  extend-- 
ing  your  business  but  for  defending  it  as 
well,  you  must  be  prepared  to  face  the  con- 
sequences of  a  folly  as  great  as  that  of  a 
duelist  who  expects  to  survive  in  a  contest 
in  which  his  adversary  bears  a  sword  twice 
the  length  of  his  own. 

Don't  think  that  it's  too  late  to  begin  be- 
cause there  are  so  many  stores  which  have 


Cannon  that  Modernized  yapan  ii 

had  the  advantage  of  years  of  cumulative 
advertising.  The  city  is  growing.  It  will 
grow  even  more  next  year.  It  needs  in- 
creased trading  facilities  just  as  it's  hungry 
for  new  neighborhoods. 

But  it  will  never  again  support  neighbor-' 
hood  stores.  Newspaper  advertising  has 
reduced  the  value  of  being  locally  prom- 
inent^ and  five  cent  street  car  fares  have 
cut  out  the  advantage  of  being  ''around 
the  corner.''  A  store  five  miles  away,  can 
reach  out  through  the  columns  of  the  daily 
newspaper  and  draw  your  next  door  neigh- 
bor to  its  aisles,  while  you  sit  by  and  see  the 
people  on  your  own  block  enticed  away, 
without  your  being  able  to  retaliate  or 
secure  new  customers  to  take  their  place. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  your  abihty  to 
stand  the  cost  of  advertising  but  of  being 
able  to  survive  without  it.  The  thing  you 
have  to  consider  is  not  only  an  extension 
of  your  business  but  of  holding  what  you 
already  have. 

Advertising  is  an  investment,  the  cost  of 
which  is  in  the  same  proportion  to  its  returns 
as  seeds  are  to  the  harvest.    And  it  is  just  as 


12  Cannon  that  Modernized  yapan 

preposterous  for  you  to  consider  publicity 
as  an  expense,  as  it  would  be  for  a  farmer 
to  hesitate  over  purchasing  a  fertilizer,  if  he 
discovered  that  he  could  profitably  increase 
his  crops  by  employing  it. 


"The  "Tailor  who  Paid 
too  Much 


The  Tailor  who  Paid 
too  Much 


1WAS  buying  a  cigar  last  week  when  a 
man  dropped  into  the  shop  and  after 
making  a  purchase  told  the  proprietor 
that  he  had  started  a  clothes  shop  around 
the  corner  and  quoted  him  prices,  with  the 
assurance  of  best  garments  and  terms. 

After  he  left  the  cigar  man  turned  to  me 
and  said: 

"Enterprising  fellow,  that,  he'll  get 
along. " 

"But  he  wont,''  I  replied,  "and,  further- 
more, ril  wager  you  that  he  hasn't  the  sort 
of  clothes  shop  that  will  enable  him  to. " 

"What  made  you  think  that?"  queried 
the  man  behind  the  counter. 

"His  theories  are  wrong,"  I  explained; 
"he's  relying  upon  word  of  mouth  publicity 
to  build  up  his  business  and  he  can't  inter- 


i6      Tailor  who  Paid  too  Much 

view  enough  individuals  to  compete  with  a 
merchant,  who  has  sense  enough  to  say  the 
same  things  he  told  you,  to  a  hundred 
thousand  men,  while  he  is  telling  it  to  one. 
Besides,  his  method  of  advertising  is  too  ex- 
pensive. Suppose  he  sees  a  hundred  persons 
every  day.  First  of  all,  he  is  robbing  his 
business  of  its  necessary  direction  and  be- 
sides, he  is  spending  too  much  to  reach  every 
man  he  solicits. " 

"I  don't  quite  follow  you." 

"Well,  as  the  proprietor  of  a  clothes  shop 
his  own  time  is  so  valuable  that  I  am  very 
conservative  in  my  estimate  when  I  put 
the  cost  of  his  soUciting  at  five  cents  a  head. 

"Now,  if  he  were  really  able  and  clever 
he  would  discover  that  he  can  talk  to  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  people  at  a  tenth  of 
a  cent  per  individual.  There  is  not  a  news- 
paper in  town  the  advertising  rate  of  which 
is  $i.oo  per  thousand  circulation,  for  a  space 
big  enough  in  which  to  display  what  he  said 
to  you.^' 

"  I  never  looked  at  it  that  way, "  said  the 
cigar  man. 

It's  only  ^Hhe  man  who  hasn't  looked  at 


Tailor  who  Paid  too  Much     77 

it  that  way^'  who  hesitates  for  an  instant 
over  the  advisability  and  profitableness  of 
newspaper  publicity. 

Newspaper  advertising  is  the  cheapest  ( 
channel  of  communication  ever  established 
by  man.  A  thousand  letters  with  one-cent 
stamps,  will  easily  cost  fifteen  dollars  and 
not  one  envelope  in  ten  will  be  opened  be- 
cause the  very  postage  is  an  invitation  to  the 
wastebasket. 

If  there  were  anything  cheaper  rest  as- 
sured that  the  greatest  merchants  in 
America  would  not  spend  individual  sums 
ranging  up  to  halj  a  million  dollars  a  year 
and  over,  upon  this  form  of  attracting  trade. 


T'he  Man  who  Retreats 
before  His  Defeat 


The  Man  who 
Retreats  before  His  ^ 
Defeat 


ADVERTISING  isn't  magic.  There 
is  no  element  of  the  black  art  about 
it.  In  its  best  and  highest  form  it 
is  plain  talk,  sane  talk  —  selling  talk.  Its 
results  are  in  proportion  to  the  vfierii  of  the 
subject  advertised  and  the  ability  with 
which  the  advertising  is  done. 

There  are  two  great  obstacles  to  advertis- 
ing profit,  and  both  of  them  arise  from 
ignorance  of  the  real  functions  and  workings 
of  publicity. 

The  first  is  to  advertise  promises  which 
will  not  be  fulfilled,  —  because  all  that  ad- 
vertising can  do  when  it  accomplishes  most, 
is  to  influence  the  reader  to  investigate  your 
claims. 


22      The  Man  who  Retreats 

If  you  promise  the  earth  and  deliver  the 
moon,  advertising  will  not  pay  you. 

If  you  bring  men  and  women  to  your 
store  on  pretense  and  fail  to  make  good, 
advertising  will  have  harmed  you,  because 
it  has  only  drawn  attention  to  the  fact  that 
you  are  to  be  avoided. 

It  is  as  unjust  to  charge  advertising  with 
failure  under  these  conditions,  as  it  would  be 
for  your  neighbor  to  rob  a  bank  and  make 
you  responsible  for  his  misdeed.  In  brief, 
advertised  dishonesty  is  even  more  profitless 
than  unexploited  deception. 

The  other  great  error  in  advertising  is  to 
expect  more  out  of  advertising  than  there 
is  in  it. 

Advertising  is  seed  which  a  merchant  plants 
in  the  confidence  of  the  community.  He  must 
allow  time  for  it  to  grow.  Every  successful 
advertiser  has  to  be  patient.  The  time  that 
it  takes  to  arrive  at  results  rests  entirely 
with  the  ability  and  determination  de- 
voted to  the  work.  But  you  cannot  turn 
back  when  you  have  traveled  half  way  and 
declare  that  the  path  is  wrong. 

You  can't  advertise  for  a  week,  and  be- 


The  Man  who  Retreats       23 

cause  your  store  isn't  crowded,  say  it  hasn't 
paid  you.  It  takes  a  certain  period  to 
attract  the  attention  of  readers.  Everybody 
doesn't  see  what  you  print  the  first  time  it 
appears.  More  will  notice  your  copy  the 
second  day,  a  great  many  more  at  the  end 
of  a  month. 

You  cannot  expect  to  win  the  confidence 
of  the  community  to  the  same  degree  that 
other  men  have  obtained  it,  without  taking 
pretty  much  the  same  length  of  time  that 
they  did.  But  you  can  cut  short  the  period 
between  your  introduction  to  your  reader 
and  his  introduction  to  your  counters,  by 
spending  more  effort  in  preparing  your 
copy  and  displaying  a  greater  amount  of 
convincingness. 

You  mustn't  act  like  the  little  girl  who 
sowed  a  garden  and  came  out  the  next 
day  expecting  to  find  it  in  full  bloom.  Her 
father  had  to  explain  to  her  that  plants 
require  roots  and  that,  although  she  could 
not  see  what  was  going  on,  the  seeds  were 
doing  their  most  important  work  just  before 
the  flowers  showed  above  ground. 

So  advertising  is  doing  its  most  important 


24       The  Man  who  Retreats 

work  before  the  big  results  eventuate,  and 
to  abandon  the  money  which  has  been 
invested  just  before  results  arrive,  is  not 
only  foolish  but  childish.  It  would  he  just 
as  logical  for  a  farmer  to  desert  his  fields 
because  he  cannot  harvest  his  corn  a  week 
after  he  planted  it. 

Advertising  does  not  require  faith  — 
merely  common  sense.  If  it  is  begun  in 
doubt  and  relinquished  before  normal  re- 
sults can  be  reasonably  looked  for,  the  fault 
does  not  lie  with  the  newspaper  nor  with 
publicity  —  the  blame  is  solely  on  the  head 
of  the  coward  who  retreated  before  he  was 
defeated. 


'The  Dollar  that  Can't 
be  Spent 


The  Dollar  that 
Can't  be  Spent 


EVERY  dollar  spent  in  advertising  is 
not  only  a  seed  dollar  which  produces 
a  profit  for  the  merchant,  but  is  ac- 
tually retained  by  him  even  ajter  he  has 
paid  it  to  the  publisher. 

Advertising  creates  a  good  will  equal  to 
the  cost  of  the  publicity. 

Advertising  really  costs  nothing.  While  it 
uses  funds  it  does  not  use  them  up.  It  helps 
the  founder  of  a  business  to  grow  rich  and 
then  keeps  his  business  alive  after  his  death. 

It  eliminates  the  personal  equation.  It 
perpetuates  confidence  in  the  store  and  makes 
it  possible  for  a  merchant  to  withdraw  from 
business  without  having  the  profits  of  the 
business  withdrawn  from  him.  It  changes 
a  name  to  an  institution  —  an  institution 
which  will  survive  its  builder. 


28    Dollar  that  Can't  be  Spent 

It  is  really  an  insurance  policy  which 
costs  nothing  —  pays  a  premium  each  year 
instead  of  calling  for  one  and  renders  it 
possible  to  change  the  entire  personnel  of  a 
business  without  disturbing  its  prosperity. 

Advertising  renders  the  business  stronger 
than  the  man  —  independent  of  his  pres- 
ence. It  permanentizes  systems  of  mer- 
chandising, the  track  of  which  is  left  for 
others  to  follow. 

A  business  which  is  not  advertised  must 
rely  upon  the  personality  of  its  proprietor, 
and  personality  in  business  is  a  decreasing 
factor.  The  public  does  not  want  to  know 
the  man  who  owns  the  store  —  it  isn't  inter- 
ested in  him  but  in  his  goods.  When  an  un- 
advertised  business  is  sold  it  is  only  worth  as 
much  as  its  stock  of  goods  and  its  fixtures. 
There  is  no  good  will  to  be  paid  for — it  does 
not  exist — it  has  not  been  created.  The  name 
over  the  door  means  nothing  except  to  the 
limited  stream  of  people  from  the  immedi- 
ate neighborhood,  any  of  whom  could  tell 
you  more  about  some  store  ten  miles  away 
which  has  regularly  delivered  its  shop  news 
to  their  breakfast  table. 


Dollar  that  Can^t  be  Spent     29 

It  is  as  shortsighted  for  a  man  to  build  a 
business  which  dies  with  his  death  or  ceases 
with  his  inaction,  as  it  is  unfair  for  him  not 
to  provide  for  the  continuance  of  its  income 
to  his  family. 


"The  Pass  of  Thermopylae 


The  Pass  of 
Thermopylae 


XERXES  once  led  a  million  soldiers 
out  of  Persia  in  an  effort  to  capture 
Greece,  but  his  invasion  failed 
utterly,  because  a  Spartan  captain  had  en- 
trenched a  hundred  men  in  a  narrow  moun- 
tain pass,  which  controlled  the  road  into 
Lacedaemon.  The  man  who  was  first  on  the 
ground  had  the  advantage. 

Advertising  is  full  of  opportunities  for 
men  who  are  first  on  the  ground. 

There  are  hundreds  of  advertising  passes 
waiting  for  some  one  to  occupy  them.  The 
first  man  who  realizes  that  his  line  will  be 
helped  by  publicity,  has  a  tremendous  op- 
portunity. He  can  gain  an  advantage  over 
his  competitors  that  they  can  never  possess. 
Those  who  follow  him  must  spend  more 
money  to  equal  his  returns.    They  must  not 


34     The  Pass  of  Thermopylae 

only  invest  as  muchy  to  get  as  much,  but 
they  must  as  well,  spend  an  extra  sum  to 
counteract  the  influence  that  he  has  already 
established  in  the  community. 

Whatever  men  sell,  whether  it  is  actual 
merchandise  or  brain  vibrations,  can  be 
more  easily  sold  with  the  aid  of  advertising. 
Not  one  half  of  the  businesses  which  should 
be  exploited  are  appearing  in  the  news- 
papers. Trade  grows  as  reputation  grows 
and  advertising  spreads  reputation. 

If  you  are  engaged  in  a  line  which  is 
waiting  for  an  advertising  pioneer,  realize 
what  a  wonderful  chance  you  have  of  being 
the  first  of  your  kind  to  appeal  directly  to 
the  public.  You  stand  a  better  chance  of 
leadership  than  those  who  have  handicapped 
their  strength,  by  permitting  you  to  get  on 
the  ground  before  they  could  outstrip  you. 
You  gain  a  prestige  that  those  who  follow 
you,  must  spend  more  money  to  counteract. 

If  your  particular  line  is  similar  to  some 
other  trade  or  business  which  has  already 
been  introduced  to  the  reading  public,  it's 
up  to  you  to  start  in  right  now  and  join  your 
competitors  in  contesting  for  the  attention 


The  Pass  of  Thermopylae     35 

of  the  community.  The  longer  you  delay 
the  more  you  decrease  your  chances  of 
surviving.  Every  man  who  outstrips  you 
is  another  opponent^  who  must  be  met  and 
grappled  with,  for  the  right  of  way. 


The  Perambulating  Shmjocase 


The  Perambulating 
Showcase 


THE  newspaper  is  a  huge  shop  window, 
carried  about  the  city  and  delivered 
daily  into  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  homes,  to  be  examined  at  the  leisure  of 
the  reader.  This  shop  window  is  unlike  the 
actual  plate  glass  showcase  only  in  one 
respect  —  it  makes  display  of  descriptions 
instead  of  articles. 

You  have  often  been  impressed  by  the 
difference  between  the  decorations  of  two 
window-trimmers,  each  of  whom  employed 
the  same  materials  for  his  work.  The  one 
drew  your  attention  and  held  it  by  the  grace 
and  cleverness  and  art  manifested  in  his 
display.  The  other  realized  so  little  of  the 
possibilities  in  the  materials  placed  at  his 
disposal,  that  unless  some  one  called  your 


40     The  Perambulating  Showcase 

attention  to  his  mediocrities  you  would 
have  gone  on  unconscious  of  their  existence. 

An  advertiser  must  know  that  he  gets 
his  results  in  accordance  with  the  skill  ex- 
ercised in  preparing  his  verbal  displays. 
He  must  make  people  stop  and  pause.  His 
copy  has  to  stand  out. 

He  must  not  only  make  a  show  of  things 
that  are  attractive  to  the  eye  but  are 
attractive  to  the  people's  needs,  as  well. 

The  window-trimmer  must  not  make  the 
mistake  of  thinking  that  the  showiest  stocks 
are  the  most  salable.  The  advertiser  must 
not  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  the 
showiest  words  are  the  most  clinching. 

Windows  are  too  few  in  number  to  be 
used  with  indiscretion.  The  good  merchant 
puts  those  goods  back  of  his  plate  glass 
which  nine  people  out  of  ten  will  want,  once 
they  have  seen  them. 

The  good  advertiser  tells  about  goods 
which  nine  readers  out  of  ten  will  buy,  if 
they  can  be  convinced. 

Newspaper  space  itself  is  only  the  win- 
dow, just  as  the  showcase  is  but  a  frame 
for  merchandise  pictures.      A  window  on  a 


The  Perambulating  Showcase     41 

crowded  street,  in  the  best  neighborhood, 
where  prosperous  persons  pass  continually, 
is  more  desirable,  than  one  in  a  cheap, 
sparsely  settled  neighborhood.  An  adver- 
tisement in  a  newspaper  with  the  most 
readers  and  the  most  prosperous  ones,  pos- 
sesses a  great  advantage  over  the  same  copy, 
in  a  medium  circulating  among  persons  who 
possess  less  means.  It  would  be  foolish  for 
a  shop  to  build  its  windows  in  an  alley- 
way—  and  just  as  much  so  to  put  its 
advertising  into  newspapers  which  are 
distributed  among  "alley-dwellerSp^ 


Hcyuo  Alexander  Untied  the 
Knot 


How  Alexander  Untied 
the  Knot 


ALEXANDER  the  Great  was  being 
shown  the  Gordian  Knot.  "It 
can't  be  untied,"  they  told  him; 
"every  man  who  tried  to  do  so,  failed." 

But  Alexander  was  not  discouraged  be- 
cause the  rest  had  flunked.  He  simply 
realized  that  he  would  have  to  go  at  it  in 
a  different  way.  And  instead  of  wasting 
time  with  his  fingers,  he  drew  his  sword  and 
slashed  it  apart. 

Every  day  a  great  business  general  is 
shown  some  knot  which  has  proven  too 
much  for  his  competitors,  and  he  succeeds, 
because  he  finds  a  way  to  cut  it.  The 
fumbler  has  no  show  so  long  as  there  is  a 
brother  merchant  who  doesn't  waste  time 
trying  to  accomplish  the  impossible  —  who 
takes  lessons  from  the  failures  about  him 


46    How  the  Knot  IVas  Untied 

and  avoids  the  methods  which  were  their 
downfall. 
The  knottiest  problems  in  trade  are : 

/  —  The  problem  of  location. 

2  —  The  problem  of  getting  the  crowds, 

J  —  The  problem  of  keeping  the  crowds. 

4  —  The  problem  of  minimizing  fixed 
expenses. 

5  —  The  problem  of  creating  a  valuable 
good  will. 

None  of  these  knots  is  going  to  be  untied 
by  fumbling  fingers.  They  are  too  com- 
pHcated.  They're  all  inextricably  involved 
—  so  twisted  and  entangled  that  they  can't 
be  solved  singly  —  like  the  Gordian  knot 
they  must  be  cut  through  at  one  stroke.  And 
you  can't  cut  the  knot  with  anything  but 
advertising  —  because : 

1  —  A  store  that  is  constantly  before  the 
people  makes  its  own  neighborhood. 

2  —  Crowds  can  be  brought  from  anywhere 
by  daily  advertising, 

J  —  Customers  can  always  be  held  by 
inducements. 


How  the  Knot  JVas  Untied    4J 

^  —  Fixed  expenses  can  only  be  reduced 
by  increasing  the  volume  of  sales. 

5  —  Good  will  can  only  be  created  through 
publicity. 

Advertising  is  breeding  new  giants  every 
year  and  making  them  more  powerful  every 
hour.  Pubhcity  is  the  sustaining  food  of  a 
powerful  store  and  the  only  strengthening 
nourishment  for  a  weak  one.  The  retailer 
who  delays  his  entry  into  advertising  must 
pay  the  penalty  of  his  procrastination  by 
facing  more  giant  competitors  as  each 
month  of  opportunity  slips  by. 

Personal  ability  as  a  close  purchaser  and 
as  a  clever  seller,  doesn't  count  for  a  hang, 
so  long  as  other  men  are  equally  well  posted 
and  wear  the  sword  of  publicity  to  boot. 
They  are  able  to  tie  your  business  into  con- 
stantly closer  knots,  while  you  cannot 
retaliate,  because  there  is  no  knot  which 
their  advertising  cannot  cut  for  them. 

Yesterday  you  lost  a  customer  —  today 
they  took  one  —  tomorrow  they'll  get 
another.  You  cannot  cope  with  their  com- 
petition because  you  haven't  the  weapon 


48     How  the  Knot  JVas  Untied 

with  which  to  oppose  it.  You  can't  untie 
your  Gordian  knot  because  it  can't  be 
untied  —  you've  got  to  cut  it. 

You  must  become  an  advertiser  or  you 
must  pay  the  penalty  of  incompetence. 

You  not  only  require  the  newspaper  to 
fight  for  a  more  hopeful  tomorrow,  but 
to  keep  today  s  situation  from  becoming 
hopeless. 


If  It  Fits  You,  Wear 
this  Cap 


If  It  Fits  Tou,  PFear 
this  Cap 


ADVERTISING  isn't  a  crucible  with 
which  lazy,  bigoted  and  incapable 
merchants  can  turn  incompetency 
into  success — but  one  into  which  brains  and 
tenacity  and  courage  can  be  poured  and 
changed  into  dollars.  It  is  only  a  short 
cut  across  the  fields  —  not  a  moving  plat- 
form. You  can't  "get  there"  without 
"going  some." 

It's  a  game  in  which  the  worker  —  not 
the  shirker  —  gets  rich. 

By  its  measurement  every  man  stands 
for  what  he  is  and  for  what  he  does^  not 
for  what  he  was  and  what  he  did. 

Every  day  in  the  advertising  world  is 
another  day  and  has  to  be  taken  care  of 
with  the  same  energy  as  its  yesterday. 
.    The  quitter  cant  survive  where  the  plugger 
has  the  ghost  of  a  chance. 


52     If  It  Fits  TVear  this  Cap 

Advertising  doesn't  take  the  place  of 
business  talent  or  business  management. 
It  simply  tells  what  a  business  is  and  how 
it  is  managed.  The  snob  whose  father 
created  and  who  is  content  to  live  on  what 
was  handed  to  him,  can't  stand  up  against 
the  man  who  knows  he  must  build  for 
himself. 

What  makes  you  think  that  you  are  en- 
titled to  prosper  as  well  as  a  competitor 
who  works  twice  as  hard  for  his  prosperity  ? 

Why  should  as  many  people  deal  at  your 
store,  as  patronize  a  shop  that  makes  an 
endeavor  to  get  their  trade  and  shows  them 
that  it  is  worth  while  to  come  to  its  doors? 

Why  should  a  newspaper  send  as  many 
customers  to  you^  in  half  the  time  it  took  to 
fill  an  estabUshment  which  advertised  twice 
as  long  and  paid  twice  as  much  for  its 
publicity  ? 

This  is  the  day  when  the  best  man  wins  — 
after  he  proves  that  he  is  the  best  man  — 
when  the  best  store  wins,  when  it  has  shown 
that  it  is  the  best  store  —  when  the  best 
goods  win,  after  they've  been  demonstrated 
to  be  the  best  goods. 


If  It  Fits  TVear  this  Cap      53 

If  you  want  the  plum  you  can't  get  it  by 
lying  under  the  tree  with  your  mouth  open 
waiting  for  it  to  drop  —  too  many  other 
men  are  willing  to  climb  out  on  the  limb 
and  risk  their  necks  in  their  eagerness  to 
get  it  away  from  you. 

It  is  a  mans  game  —  this  advertising  — 
just  hanging  on  and  tugging  and  straining 
all  the  time  to  get  and  keep  ahead.  It  is 
the  finite  expression  of  the  law  of  Competi- 
tion, which  sits  in  blind-folded  justice  over 
the  markets  of  the  world. 


Tou  Must  Irrigate  Tour 
Neighborhood 


Tou  Must  Irrigate 
Tour  Neighborhood 


HALF  a  century  ago  there  were  ten 
million  acres  of  land,  within  a 
thousand  miles  of  Chicago,  upon 
which  not  even  a  blade  of  grass  would  grow. 
Today  upon  these  very  deserts  are  wonder- 
ful orchards  and  tremendous  wheatfields. 
The  soil  itself  was  full  of  possibilities.  What 
the  land  needed  was  water.  In  time  there 
came  farmers  who  knew  that  they  could  not 
expect  the  streams  to  come  to  them,  and  so 
they  dug  ditches  and  led  the  water  to  their 
properties  from  the  surrounding  rivers  and 
lakes;  they  tilled  the  earth  with  their  brains 
as  well  as  their  plows  —  they  became  rich 
through  irrigation. 

Advertising  has  made  thousands  of  men 
rich,  just  because  they  recognized  the  possi- 
bilities of  utilizing  the  newspapers  to  bring 


58     Must  Irrigate  Neighborhood 

streams  of  buyers  into  neighborhoods  that 
could  be  made  busy  locations  by  irrigation 
—  hy  drawing  people  from  other  sections. 

The  successful  retailer  is  the  man  who 
keeps  the  stream  of  purchasers  coming  his 
way.  It  isn't  the  spot  itself  that  makes 
the  store  pay  —  it's  the  man  who  makes  the 
spot  pay.  Centers  of  trade  are  not  selected 
by  the  public  —  they  are  created  by  the 
force  which  controls  the  public  —  the  news- 
papers. 

New  neighborhoods  for  business  are  being 
constantly  built  up  by  men  who  have 
located  themselves  in  streets  which  they 
have  changed  from  deserted  by-ways  into 
teeming,  jostling  thoroughfares,  through 
advertising  irrigation. 

The  storekeeper  who  whines  that  his 
neighborhood  holds  him  back  is  squinting 
at  the  truth  —  he  is  hurting  the  neighborhood. 

If  it  lacks  streams  of  buyers,  he  can 
easily  enough  secure  them  by  reaching  out 
through  the  columns  of  the  daily  and  in- 
ducing people  from  other  sections  to  come 
to  him.  Every  time  he  influences  a  cus- 
tomer of  a  competitor  he  is  not  only  irrigat- 


Must  Irrigate  Neighborhood     sg 

ing  his  own  field  but  is  diverting  the 
streams  upon  which  a  non-advertising  mer- 
chant depends  for  existence.  Men  and 
women  who  live  next  door  to  a  shop  that 
does  not  plead  for  their  custom  will  even- 
tually be  drawn  to  an  establishment  nfiiles 
away  because  they  have  been  made  to 
believe  in  some  advantage  to  be  gained 
thereby. 

The  circulation  of  every  daily  is  nothing 
less  than  a  reservoir  of  buyers,  from  which 
shoppers  stream  in  the  direction  that  prom- 
ises the  most  value  for  the  least  inoney. 

The  magic  development  of  the  desert 
lands,  has  its  parallel  in  merchandising  of 
men  who  consider  the  newspaper  an  irrigat- 
ing power  which  can  make  two  customers 
grow  where  one  grew  before. 


Catd^s  Follow-up  System 


Catds  Follow-up 
System 


IF  a  man  lambasted  you  on  the  eye  and 
walked  away  and  waited  a  week  be- 
fore he  repeated  the  performance,  he 
wouldn't  hurt  you  very  badly.  Between 
attacks  you  would  have  an  opportunity  to 
recover  from  the  effect  of  the  first  blow. 

But  if  he  smashed  you  and  kept  mauling^ 
each  impact  of  his  fist  would  find  you  less 
able  to  stand  the  hammering,  and  a  half- 
dozen  jabs  would  probably  knock  you  down. 

Now  advertising  is,  after  all,  a  matter  of 
hitting  the  eye  of  the  public.  If  you  allow  too 
great  an  interval  to  elapse  between  in- 
sertions of  copy  the  effect  of  the  first  ad- 
vertisement will  have  worn  away  by  the 
time  you  hit  again.  You  may  continue 
your  scattered  talks  over  a  stretch  of  years, 
but  you  will  not  derive  the  same  benefit 


64      Cato^s  Follow-up  System 

that  would  result  from  a  greater  concentra- 
tion. In  other  words,  by  appearing  in  print 
every  day,  you  are  able  to  get  the  bene- 
fit of  the  impression  created  the  day 
before,  and  as  each  piece  of  copy  makes  its 
appearance,  the  result  of  your  publicity  on 
the  reader's  mind  is  more  pronounced  — 
you  musn't  stop  short  of  a  knock-down 
impression. 

Persistence  is  the  foundation  of  advertis- 
ing success.  Regularity  of  insertion  is  just 
as  important  as  clever  phrasing.  The  man 
who  hangs  on  is  the  man  who  wins  out, 
Cato  the  Elder  is  an  example  to  every 
merchant  who  uses  the  newspapers  and 
should  be  an  inspiration  to  every  store- 
keeper who  does  not.  For  twenty  years  he 
arose  daily  in  the  Roman  senate  and  cried 
out  for  the  destruction  of  Carthage.  In  the 
beginning  he  found  his  conferees  very  un- 
responsive. But  he  kept  on  every  day, 
month  after  month  and  year  after  year, 
sinking  into  the  minds  of  all  the  necessity 
of  destroying  Carthage,  until  he  set  all  the 
senate  thinking  upon  the  subject  and  in  the 
end  Rome  sent  an  army  across  the  Mediter- 


Catd^s  Follow-up  System      65 

ranean  and  ended  the  reign  of  the  Hannibals 
and  Hamilcars  over  northern  Africa.  The 
persistent  utterances  of  a  single  man  did  it. 
The  history  of  every  mercantile  success 
is  parallel.  The  advertiser  who  does  not  let 
a  day  sUp  by  without  having  his  say,  is 
bound  to  be  heard  and  have  his  influence 
felt.  Every  insertion  of  copy  brings  stronger 
returns,  because  it  has  the  benefit  of 
what  has  been  said  before,  until  the  pub- 
lic's attention  is  like  an  eye  that  has  been 
so  repeatedly  struck,  that  the  least  touch 
of  suggestion  will  feel  like  a  blow. 


How  to  JVrite  Retail 
Advertising  Copy 


How  to  IVrite  Retail 
Advertising  Copy 

A  SKILLED  layer  of  mosaics  works 
with  small  fragments  of  stone  — 
they  fit  into  more  places  than  the 
larger  chunks. 

The  skilled  advertiser  works  with  small 
words  —  they  fit  into  more  minds  than  hig 
phrases. 

The  simpler  the  language  the  greater 
certainty  that  it  will  be  understood  by 
the  least  intelligent  reader. 

The  construction  engineer  plans  his  road- 
bed where  there  is  a  minimum  of  grade  — 
he  works  along  the  lines  of  least  resistance. 

The  advertisement  which  runs  into  moun- 
tainous style  is  badly  surveyed  —  all  minds 
are  not  built  for  high  grade  thinking. 

Advertising  must  be  simple.  When  it  is 
tricked  out  with  the  jewelry  and  silks  of 


JO  Retail  Advertising 

literary  expression,  it  looks  as  much  out  of 
place  as  a  hall  dress  at  the  breakfast  table! 

The  buying  public  is  only  interested  in 
facts.  People  read  advertisements  to  find 
out  what  you  have  to  sell. 

The  advertiser  who  can  fire  the  most  facts 
in  the  shortest  time  gets  the  most  returns. 
Blank  cartridges  make  noise  but  they  do  not 
hit  —  blank  talk,  however  clever,  is  only 
wasted  space. 

You  force  your  salesmen  to  keep  to  solid 
facts  —  you  don't  allow  them  to  sell  muslin 
with  quotations  from  Omar  or  trousers  with 
excerpts  from  Marie  Corelli.  You  must 
not  tolerate  in  your  printed  selling  talk 
anything  that  you  are  not  willing  to 
countenance  in  personal  salesmanship. 

Cut  out  clever  phrases  if  they  are  inserted 
to  the  sacrifice  of  clear  explanations  — 
write  copy  as  you  talk.  ,  Only  be  more  brief. 
Publicity  is  costlier  than  conversation  — 
ranging  in  price  downward  from  $io  a  line; 
talk  is  not  cheap  but  the  most  expensive 
commodity  in  the  world. 

Sketch  in  your  ad  to  the  stenographer. 
Then  you  will  be  so  busy  *' saying  it'*  that 


Retail  Advertising  7/ 

you  will  not  have  time  to  bother  about  the 
gewgaws  of  writing.  Afterwards  take  the 
typewritten  manuscript  and  cut  out  every 
word  and  every  line  that  can  be  erased 
without  omitting  an  important  detail. 
What  remains  in  the  end  is  all  that  really 
counted  in  the  beginning. 

Cultivate  brevity  and  simplicity.  "  Savon 
Fran^ais"  may  look  smarter,  but  more 
people  will  understand  "French  Soap." 
Sir  Isaac  Newton's  explanation  of  gravita- 
tion covers  six  pages  but  the  schoolboy's 
terse  and  homely  "What  goes  up  must 
come  down"  clinches  the  whole  thing  in 
six  words. 

Indefinite  talk  wastes  space.  It  is  not 
100%  productive.  The  copy  that  omits 
prices  sacrifices  half  its  pulling  power  — 
it  has  a  tendency  to  bring  lookers  instead 
of  buyers.  It  often  creates  false  impressions. 
Some  people  are  bound  to  conceive  the  idea 
that  the  goods  are  higher  priced  than  in 
reality  —  others,  by  the  same  token,  are 
just  as  likely  to  infer  that  the  prices  are 
lower  and  go  away  thinking  that  you  have 
exaggerated  your  statements. 


7^  Retail  Advertising 

The  reader  must  be  searched  out  by  the 
copy.  Big  space  is  cheapest  because  it 
doesnt  waste  a  single  eye.  Publicity  must 
be  on  the  offensive.  There  are  far  too  many 
advertisers  who  keep  their  Hghts  on  top  of 
their  bushel  —  the  average  citizen  hasnt 
time  to  overturn  your  bushel. 

Small  space  is  expensive.  Like  a  one- 
Hake  snowstorm^  there  is  not  enough  of  it 
to  lay. 

Space  is  a  comparative  matter  after  all. 
It  is  not  a  case  of  how  much  is  used  as  how 
it  is  used.  The  passengers  on  the  limited 
express  may  realize  that  Jones  has  tacked 
a  twelve-inch  shingle  on  every  post  and 
fence  for  a  stretch  of  five  miles,  but  they 
are  going  too  fast  to  make  out  what  the 
shingles  say,  yet  the  two  feet  letters  of 
Brown's  big  bulletin  board  on  top  of  the 
hill  leap  at  them  before  they  have  a  chance 
to  dodge  it.  And  at  that  it  doesn't  cost 
nearly  so  much  as  the  sum  total  of  Jones' 
dinky  display. 

Just  so  advertisements  attractively  dis- 
played every  day  or  every  other  day  for 
a  year  in  one  big  newspaper,  will  find  the 


Retail  Advertising  7j 

eye  of  all  readers,  no  matter  how  rapidly 
they  may  be  "going"  through  the  advertis- 
ing pages  and  produce  more  results  than  a 
dozen  piking  pieces  of  copy  scattered  through 
halj  a  dozen  dailies. 


The  Difference  between  Amusing 
and  Convincing 


The  Difference  between 
Amusing  and  Convincing 


AN  advertiser  must  realize  that  there 
is  a  vast  difference  between  amus- 
ing people  and  convincing  them. 
It  does  not  pay  to  be  "smart"  at  the  line 
rate  of  the  average  first  class  daily.  I  sup- 
pose that  I  could  draw  the  attention  of 
everybody  on  the  street  by  painting  half 
of  my  face  red  and  donning  a  suit  of  motley. 
I  might  have  a  sincere  purpose  in  wishing 
to  attract  the  crowd,  but  I  would  be  deluding 
myself  if  I  mistook  the  nature  of  their 
attention. 

The  new  advertiser  is  especially  prone  to 
misjudge  between  amusing  and  convincing 
copy.  A  humorous  picture  may  catch  the 
eyes  of  every  reader,  but  it  won't  pay  as 
well  as  an  illustration  of  some  piece  of  mer- 
chandise which  will  strike  the  eye  of  every 


j8     Amusing  and  Convincing 

buyer.  Merchants  secure  varying  results 
from  the  same  advertising  space.  The 
pubUsher  deUvers  to  each  the  same  quality  of 
readers^  but  the  advertiser  who  plants 
flippancy  in  the  minds  of  the  community 
won't  attain  the  benefit  that  is  secured 
by  the  merchant  who  imprints  clinching 
arguments  there. 

Always  remember  that  the  advertising 
sections  of  newspapers  are  no  different 
than  farming  lands.  And  it  is  as  preposter- 
ous to  hold  the  publisher  responsible  for 
the  outcome  of  unintelligent  copy  as  it 
would  be  unjust  to  blame  the  soil  for  bad 
seed  and  poor  culture.  Every  advertiser 
gets  exactly  the  same  number  of  readers  from 
a  publisher  and  the  same  readers  —  after 
that  it's  up  to  him  —  the  results  fluctuate 
in  accordance  with  the  intelligence  and  the 
pulling  power  of  the  copy  which  is  inserted. 


Some  Don*ts  when  Tou 
Do  Advertise 


Some  Dorits  when  Tou 
Do  Advertise 


THE  price  of  the  gun  never  hits  the 
hull's  eye. 
And   the   hang   seldom   rattles   the 
bells. 
It's  the  hand  on  the  trigger  that  cuts  the  real 

figger. 
The    airns    what    amounts  —  thaCs    what 

makes  record  counts  — 
Are  you  hitting  or  just  wasting  shells? 

Don't  forget  that  the  man  who  writes 
your  copy  is  the  man  who  aims  your  policy. 

When  you  stop  to  reflect  what  your 
space  costs  and  that  the  wrong  talk  is  just 
noise  —  hang  without  hiff  —  you  must  see 
the  necessity  and  sanity  of  putting  the 
right  man  hehind  the  gun, 

Dont  tolerate  an  ambition  on  your  ad- 


82     Donfs  when  Ton  Advertise 

man's  part  to  indulge  in  a  lurking  desire 
to  be  a  literary  light. 

People  read  his  advertising  to  discover 
what  your  buyers  have  just  brought  from 
the  market  and  what  you  are  asking  for 
"O.  N.  T."  They  buy  the  newspaper  for 
information  and  recreation  and  are  satisfied 
with  the  degree  of  poetry  and  persiflage 
dished  up  in  its  reading  columns. 

Dont  exaggerate.  Poetic  licenses  are  not 
valid  in  business  prose.  The  American 
people  dont  want  to  be  humbugged  and  the 
merchant  who  figures  upon  too  many  fools, 
finds  himself  looking  into  a  mirror,  usually 
about  a  half  hour  after  the  sheriff  has  come 
to  look  over  the  premises. 

Dont  imitate.  Advertising  is  a  special 
measure  garment.  Businesses  are  not  built 
in  ready-made  sizes.  Copy  which  fits  some- 
body else's  selling  plans,  won't  fit  your  store 
without  sagging  at  the  chest  or  riding  up  at 
the  collar.  Duplicated  argument  and  dupli- 
cated results  are  not  twins.  Your  policy  of 
publicity  must  be  specially  measured  from 
your  policy  of  merchandising. 

DonH   put  your  advertising   in  charge  of 


Donets  when  Tou  Advertise     83 

an  amateur.  Let  somebody  else  stand  the 
expense  of  his  educational  blunders.  Re- 
member you  are  making  a  plea  before  the 
bar  of  public  confidence.  Your  ad-writer 
is  an  advocate.  Like  a  had  lawyer^  he  can 
lose  a  good  case  by  not  making  the  most  of 
the  facts  at  hand. 

Dont  get  the  ''sales''  habit.  "Sales"  are 
stimulants.  When  held  too  often  their  effect 
is  weakening.  The  merchant  who  con- 
tinually yells  ''bargain''  is  like  the  old  hen 
who  was  always  crying  "fox."  When  the 
real  article  did  come  along,  none  of  her 
chicks  believed  it. 

Dont  use  fine  print.  Make  it  easy  for  the 
reader  to  find  out  about  your  business. 
There  are  ten  million  pairs  of  eyeglasses 
worn  in  America,  and  every  owner  of  them 
buys  something. 

And  Don't  start  unless  you  mean  to  stick. 
The  patron  saint  of  the  successful  advertiser 
hates  a  quitter. 


The  Doctor  whose  Patients 
Hang  On 


/ 


The  Doctor  whose 
Patients  Hang  On 


OUT  in  China  all  things  are  not  topsy 
turvy.  Physicians  are  paid  for 
keeping  people  well  and  when  their 
patients  fall  ill,  their  weekly  remittances  are 
stopped.  The  Chinese  judge  a  medical  man 
not  by  the  number  of  years  he  lives,  but  by 
the  length  of  time  his  patrons  survive. 

An  advertising  medium  must  be  judged 
in  the  same  way.  The  fact  that  it  has  age 
to  its  credit  isn't  so  important  as  the  age 
of  its  advertising  patronage.  Whenever  a 
daily  continues  to  display  the  store  talk  of 
the  same  establishment  year  after  year,  it's 
a  pretty  sure  sign  that  the  merchant  has 
made  money  out  of  that  newspaper,  because 
no  publication  can  continue  to  be  a  losing 
investment  to  its  customers  over  a  stretch 


88     Doctor"  s  Patients  Hang  On 

of  time,  without  the  fact  being  discovered. 
And  when  a  newspaper  is  not  only  able  to 
boast  of  an  honor  roll  of  stores  that  have 
continued  to  appear  in  its  pages  for  a 
stretch  of  decades,  but  at  the  same  time 
demonstrates  that  it  carries  more  business 
than  its  competitors,  it  has  proven  its  su- 
feriority  as  plainly  as  a  mountain  peak 
which  rises  above  its  fellows. 

The  combination  of  stability  and  progress 
is  the  strongest  virtue  that  a  newspaper 
can  possess.  Only  the  fit  survive  —  reputa- 
tion is  a  difficult  thing  to  get  and  a  harder 
thing  to  hold  —  it  takes  merit  to  earn  it  and 
character  to  maintain  it.  There  is  a  vast 
difference  between  fame  and  notoriety,  and 
just  as  much  difference  between  a  famous 
newspaper  and  a  notorious  one. 

Just  as  a  manufacturer  is  always  eager 
to  install  his  choicest  stocks  in  a  store  which 
has  earned  the  respect  of  the  community, 
just  so  a  retailer  should  be  anxious  to  insert 
his  name  in  a  newspaper  which  has  earned 
the  respect  of  its  readers.  The  manufacturer 
feels  that  he  will  receive  a  square  deal  from 
a  store  which  has  age  to  its  credit.    He  can 


Doctor^  s  Patients  Hang  On      8g 

expect  as  much  from  a  newspaper  which  is 
a  credit  to  its  age ! 

The  newspaper  which  outHves  the  rest 
does  so  because  it  was  best  fitted  to  —  it 
had  to  earn  the  confidence  of  its  readers  — 
and  keep  it.  It  had  to  be  a  better  newspaper 
than  any  other  and  better  newspapers  go  to 
the  homes  of  better  buyers.  Every  bit  of 
its  circulation  has  the  element  of  quality 
and  staying  power.  And  it  is  the  respectable^ 
home-loving  element  of  every  community  — 
not  the  touts  and  the  gamblers  —  toward 
which  the  merchant  must  look  for  his  busi- 
ness vertebrae  —  he  cannot  find  buyers  unless 
he  uses  the  newspaper  that  enters  their 
homes.  And  when  he  does  enter  their 
homes  he  must  not  confuse  the  sheet  that 
comes  in  the  back  gate  with  the  newspaper 
that  is  delivered  at  the  front  door. 


"The  Horse  that  Drew 
the  Load 


The  Horse  that  Drew 
the  Load 


AMOVING  van  came  rolling  down 
the  street  the  other  day  with  a 
big  spirited  Percheron  in  the  center 
and  two  wretched  nags  on  either  side.  The 
Percheron  was  doing  all  the  work^  and  it 
seemed  that  he  would  have  got  along  far 
better  in  single  harness,  than  he  man- 
aged with  his  inferior  mates  retarding  his 
speed. 

The  advertiser  who  selects  a  group  of 
newspapers  usually  harnesses  two  lame 
propositions  to  every  pulling  newspaper 
on  his  list,  and  just  as  the  van  driver  prob- 
ably dealt  out  an  equal  portion  of  feed  to 
each  of  his  animals,  just  so  many  a  merchant 
is  paying  practically  the  same  rate  to  a 
weak  daily,  that  he  is  allowing  the  sturdy 
profitable  sheet. 


94     Horse  that  Drew  the  Load 

Unfortunately  the  accepted  custom  of 
inserting  the  same  advertisement  in  every 
paper  acts  to  the  distinct  disadvantage  of 
the  meritorious  medium.  The  advertiser 
charges  the  sum  total  of  his  expense  against 
the  sum  total  of  his  returns^  and  thereby 
does  himself  and  the  best  puller  an  injustice, 
by  crediting  the  less  productive  sheets 
with  results  that  they  have  not  earned. 

It's  the  pulling  power  of  the  newspaper 
as  well  as  the  horse  that  proves  its  value, 
and  if  advertisers  were  as  level  headed  as 
they  should  be,  they  would  take  the  trouble 
to  put  every  daily  in  which  they  advertise 
on  trial  for  at  least  a  month  and  advertise 
a  different  department  or  article  in  each, 
carefully  tabulating  the  returns.  If  this 
were  done,  fifty  per  cent  of  the  advertising 
now  carried  in  weaker  newspapers  would  be 
withdrawn  and  the  patronage  of  the  stronger 
sheets  would  advance  in  that  proportion. 

There  are  newspapers  in  many  a  city  that 
are,  single  handed,  able  to  build  up  busi- 
nesses. Their  circulation  is  solid  muscle 
and  sinew  —  all  pull.  It  isn't  the  number 
of  copies  printed  but  the  number  of  copies 


Horse  that  Drew  the  Load     95 

that  reach  the  hands  of  buyers  —  it  isn't 
the  number  of  readers  but  the  number  of 
readers  with  money  to  spend  —  it  isn't  the 
bulk  of  a  circulation  but  the  amount  of  the 
circulation  which  is  available  to  the  ad- 
vertiser —  it  isn't  fat  but  brawn  —  that  tell 
in  the  long  run. 

There  are  certain  earmarks  that  indicate 
these  strengths  and  weaknesses.  They  are 
as  plain  to  the  observing  eye  as  the  signs 
of  the  woods  are  significant  to  the  trapper. 
The  news  columns  tell  you  what  you  can 
expect  out  of  the  advertising  columns.  A 
newspaper  always  finds  the  class  of  readers 
to  which  it  is  edited.  When  its  mental  tone 
is  low  and  its  moral  tone  is  careless  depend 
upon  it  —  the  readers  match  the  medium. 

No  gun  can  hit  a  target  outside  of  its 
range.  No  newspaper  can  aim  its  policy 
in  one  direction  and  score  in  another.  No 
advertiser  can  find  a  different  class  of  men 
and  women  than  the  publisher  has  found  for 
himself.  He  is  judged  by  the  company 
he  keeps.  //  he  lies  down  with  dogs  he  will 
arise  with  fleas. 


The  Cellar  Hole  and  the 
Sewer  Hole 


The  Cellar  Hole  and  the 
Sewer  Hole 


A  COAL  cart  stopped  before  an  office 
building  in  Washington  and  the 
driver  dismounted,  removed  the 
cover  from  a  manhole,  ran  out  his  chute, 
and  proceeded  to  empty  the  load.  An  old 
negro  strolled  over  and  stood  watching 
him.  Suddenly  the  black  man  glanced 
down  and  immediately  burst  into  a  fit  of 
uncontrollable  laughter,  which  continued 
for  several  minutes.  The  cart  driver  looked 
at  him  in  amusement.  "Say,  Uncle,"  he 
asked,  "do  you  always  laugh  when  you 
see  coal  going  into  a  cellar.?"  The  negro 
sputtered  around  for  a  few  moments  and 
then  holding  his  hands  to  his  aching  sides 
managed  to  say,  "iVo,  sah^  hut  I  jest  busts 
when  I  sees  it  goin  down  a  sewer, " 


100     Cellar  Hole  and  Sewer  Hole 

The  advertiser  who  displays  lack  of 
judgment  in  selecting  the  newspapers  which 
carry  his  copy  often  confuses  the  sewer  and 
the  cellar. 

All  the  money  that  is  put  into  newspapers 
isn't  taken  out  again,  by  any  means.  The 
fact  that  all  dailies  possess  a  certain  phys- 
ical likeness,  doesn't  necessarily  signify  a 
.  similarity  in  character,  and  it's  character 
in  a  newspaper  that  brings  returns.  The 
editor  who  conducts  a  journalistic  sewer, 
finds  a  different  class  of  readers  than  the 
publisher  who  respects  himself  enough  to 
respect  his  readers. 

What  goes  into  a  newspaper  largely  de- 
termines the  class  of  homes  into  which  the 
newspaper  goes.  An  irresponsible,  scandal- 
mongering,  muck-raking  sheet  is  certainly 
not  supported  by  the  buying  classes  of 
people.  It  may  he  perused  by  thousands 
of  readers,  but  such  readers  are  seldom 
purchasers  of  advertised  goods. 

It's  the  clean-cut,  steady,  normal-minded 
citizens  who  form  the  bone  and  sinew  and 
muscle  of  the  community.  It's  the  sane, 
self-respecting,  dependable  newspaper  that 


Cellar  Hole  and  Sewer.  Male:   mr 

enters  their  homes  and  it's  the  home  sale 
that  indicates  the  strength  of  an  advertising 
medium. 

No  clean-minded  father  of  a  family  wishes 
to  have  his  wife  and  children  brought  in 
contact  with  the  most  maudlin  and  banal 
phases  of  life.  He  defends  them  from  the 
sensational  editor  and  the  unpleasant  adver- 
tiser. He  subscribes  to  a  newspaper  which 
he  does  not  fear  to  leave  about  the  house. 

Therefore,  the  respectable  newspaper  can 
always  be  counted  upon  to  produce  more 
sales  than  one  which  may  even  own  a  larger 
circulation  but  whose  distribution  is  in  ten 
editions  among  unprofitable  citizens. 

You  can  no  more  expect  to  sell  goods  to 
people  who  haven  t  money  ^  than  you  can  hope 
to  pluck  oysters  from  rose-bushes. 

It  isn't  the  number  of  readers  reached^  but 
the  number  of  readers  whose  purses  can  be 
reached,  that  constitutes  the  value  of  cir- 
culation. It's  one  thing  to  arouse  their 
attention^  but  it's  a  far  different  thing  to 
get  their  7noney.  The  mind  may  be  willing^ 
but  the  pocketbook  may  be  weak. 

If  you  had  the  choice  of  a  thousand  acres 


4d2:  Cellar  Hole  and  Sewer  Hole 

of  desert  land  or  a  hundred  acres  of  oasis, 
you'd  select  the  fertile  spot,  realizing  that 
the  larger  tract  had  less  value  because  it 
would  be  less  productive. 

The  advertiser  who  really  understands 
how  he  is  spending  his  money,  takes  care 
that  he  is  not  pouring  his  money  into 
deserts  and  sewers. 


T^he  Neighborhood  of 
Your  Advertising 


The  Neighborhood 


CIRCULATION  is  a  commodity  which 
must  be  bought  with  the  same  com- 
mon sense  used  in  selecting  potatoes, 
cloth  and  real  estate.  It  can  he  measured 
and  weighed  —  it  is  merchandise  with  a 
provable  value.  It  varies  just  as  much  as 
the  grocer's  green  stuff,  the  tailor's  fabrics 
and  the  lots  of  the  real  estate  man. 

Your  cook  refuses  to  accept  green  and 
rotten  tomatoes  at  the  price  of  perfect  ones. 
She  does  not  calculate  the  number  of  vege- 
tables that  are  delivered  to  her,  but  those 
that  she  can  use.  When  your  wife  selects 
a  piece  of  cloth  she  first  makes  sure  that  it 
will  serve  the  purpose  she  has  in  view. 
When  you  buy  a  piece  of  property  you  con- 
sider the  neighborhood  as  well  as  the  ground. 
Just    so    when    you    buy    advertising    you 


io6        The  Neighborhood 

must  find  out  how  much  of  the  circulation 
you  can  use.  You  must  judge  the  neigh- 
borhoods where  your  copy  will  be  read,  with 
the  same  thoughtfulness  that  you  devoted 
to  selecting  the  spot  where  your  goods  are 
sold. 

A  dealer  in  precious  stones  would  be 
foolish  to  open  up  in  a  tenement  district, 
and  equally  short-sighted,  to  tell  about  his 
jewelry  in  a  newspaper  largely  distributed 
there.  Out  of  ten  thousand  men  and 
women  who  might  see  what  he  had  to  say 
not  ten  of  them  could  afford  to  buy  his  goods. 
These  ten  thousand  readers  would  be  mass 
without  muscle.  He  could  make  them 
willing  to  do  business  with  him,  but  their 
incomes  wouldnt  let  them  become  customers. 

One  of  the  greatest  mistakes  in  publicity 
is  to  drop  your  lines  where  the  fish  can't 
take  your  bait. 

Circulation  is,  as  you  see,  a  very  interest- 
ing subject,  but  very  few  people  know  any- 
thing about  it.  It  would  surprise  you  to 
know  that  this  ignorance  often  extends  to 
the  business  offices  of  newspapers.  I  have 
known   publishers   to   continually  mistake 


The  Neighborhood        loj 

the  class  of  their  readers  and  have  met  hun- 
dreds of  them  who  had  the  most  fantastic 
ideas  upon  the  figures  of  their  circulation. 

While  I  would  not  be  so  harsh  as  to 
accuse  them  of  anything  more  than  being 
mistaken^  none  the  less  their  tendency  to 
infect  others  with  this  misinformation 
renders  it  extremely  advisable  for  you  to 
become  a  member  of  the  Missouri  society 
—  and  *'be  shown.'' 

Don't  rely  solely  on  circulation  state- 
ments. You  don't  understand  the  tricks 
in  their  making.  Make  the  newspaper 
which  carries  your  advertisement  show  you 
the  list  of  its  advertisers.  A  newspaper 
which  prints  the  most  advertising,  month 
after  month,  year  after  year,  is  always  the 
best  medium.  This  is  equally  true  in  New 
York,  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  Kenosha  and 
Walla  Walla. 


The  Mistake  of  the  Big  Steak 


The  Mistake  of  the  Big 
Steak 


WATCH  out  for  waste  in  circulation. 
Find  out  where  your  story  is  go- 
ing to  be  read.  Don't  pay  for 
planting  the  seed  of  publicity  in  a  spot  where 
you  are  not  going  to  harvest  the  results. 

The  manufacturer  of  soap  who  has  his 
goods  on  sale  from  Oskaloosa  to  Timbuctoo 
doesn't  care  how  widely  a  newspaper  circula- 
tion is  scattered.  Whoever  reads  about  his 
product  is  neaj  to  some  store  or  other  where 
it  is  sold  —  but  you  have  just  one  store. 

Buying  advertising  circulation  is  very 
much  like  ordering  a  steak  —  if  the  waiter 
brings  you  a  porter-house  twice  as  big  as 
your  digestion  can  handle,  you've  paid 
twice  as  much  as  the  steak  was  worth  to 
you^  even  if  it  is  worth  the  price  to  the 
restaurant  man. 


112    Mistake  of  the  Big  Steak 

You  derive  your  profit  not  from  the  cir- 
culation that  your  advertisement  gets,  but 
from  circulation  that  gets  people  to  buy. 

If  two  newspapers  offer  you  their  columns 
and  one  shows  a  distribution  almost  en- 
tirely within  the  city  and  in  towns  that 
rely  upon  your  city  for  buying  facilities, 
your  business  can  digest  all  of  its  influence. 
If  the  other  has  as  much  circulation^  but 
only  one  third  of  it  is  in  local  territory^  mere 
bulk  cannot  establish  its  value  to  you  — 
it^s  another  case  of  the  big  steak  —  you  pay 
for  more  than  you  can  digest.  That  part 
of  its  influence  which  is  concentrated  where 
men  and  women  can't  get  your  goods  after 
you  get  their  attention^  is  sheer  waste. 

By  dividing  the  number  of  copies  he 
prints  into  his  line  rate,  a  publisher  may 
fallaciously  demonstrate  to  you  that  his 
space  is  sold  as  low  as  that  of  his  stronger 
competitors,  but  if  half  his  circulation  is 
too  far  away  to  bring  buyers,  his  real  rate 
is  double  what  it  seems.  He  is  like  the 
butcher  who  weighs  in  all  the  bone  and  sinew 
and  fat  and  charges  you  as  much  for  the 
waste  as  he  does  for  the  meat. 


"The  Omelette  Souffle 


The  Omelette  Souffle 


THERE  is  a  vast  distinction  between 
distribution  for  the  sake  of  increas- 
ing the  circulation  figures  and  dis- 
tribution for  the  sake  of  increasing  the 
number  of  advertising  responses. 

There  is  a  difference  between  a  circulation 
which  strikes  the  same  reader  several  times 
in  the  same  day  and  the  circulation  which 
does  not  repeat  the  individual.  There  is  a 
difference  between  circulation  which  is  con- 
centrated into  an  area  from  which  every 
reader  can  be  expected  to  come  to  your 
establishment,  if  you  can  interest  him,  and  a 
circulation  that  spreads  over  half  a  dozen 
states  and  shows  its  greatest  volume  in 
territory  so  far  from  your  establishment 
that  you  can't  get  a  buyer  out  of  ten 
thousand  readers. 


n6       The  Omelette  Souffle 

You've  got  to  weigh  and  measure  all 
these  things  when  you  weigh  and  measure 
circulation  figures.  It  isn't  the  number  of 
copies  printed^  but  the  number  of  copies 
sold  —  not  the  number  of  papers  distributed^ 
but  the  number  of  papers  distributed  in 
responsive  territory  —  not  the  number  of 
readers  reached^  but  the  number  of  readers 
who  have  the  price  to  buy  what  you  want 
to  sell  —  that  determine  the  value  of 
circulation  to  you. 

You  can  take  a  single  t^  and  whip  it 
into  an  omelette  souffle  which  seems  to  be  a 
whole  platefuly  but  the  extra  bulk  is  just 
hot  air  and  sugar  —  the  change  in  form  has 
not  increased  the  amount  of  egg  substance 
and  it's  the  substance  in  circulation,  just  as 
it  is  the  nutrition  in  the  egg,  that  counts. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subjert  to  immediate  recall. 


'■      2jAu^58i  N 

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LD  21A-50m-8,'57                               University  of  California 
(C8481sl0)476B                                               Berkeley 

YC  24741 


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